semi-automatic [wyatt & sue vs. dopplegangers, day 4}

[Deleted]

W Y A T T  O ' C O N N O R

Blurred vision into nothing my head had tipped back in laughter as the capitol anthem began to blare across the night sky. We had settled on sprawling across the corpse of the cornucopia, chuckles turning to full fits of laughter as the sense of coherence slowly faded with the sun, yet the rays still warmed my skin down to the vein, blurred comfort into nothing I had never felt more at home in my own skin.

Still scratched by eighty-nine it seemed that each mark was fading with the passing seconds— I tested this by holding my hand in front of my face and watching the marks shift to traces of veins across the roadmap to my salvation. I had wanted to ask Sue if he could see them too, if he could see my father’s words blurring like those eighty-nine scratches on the wall and if he could tell me why my mother always yelled when my father refused to set down a bottle with trembling hands— to forget is a solution to all problems so it seems.

I turn to lay my hand on his shoulder and find the empty bottle instead.

Turning it over in my palm I tip it against my lips like it is a fount that never runs out but I find the burning in my throat once again, only this time, it is because of loss.

I can see the eighty-nine scratches on the wall when I leave the bottle in this position, overturned with the hopes that one last drop falls out— that which comes to pass at the end of all times is the only thing that happens to matter but instead I find the anthem of the fallen and I’m shoving the wide end of the bottle into the side of Sue Tate because the silence was my ally killed by the faces of the fallen, and this was not a monster I could face alone.

He quivers under the sudden motion—the sudden change in my pulse shifting through the glass between us as we turn our eyes to the night sky to watch Noah Bowers and Maya Xiaoqing hold our gaze. Leaning back against the body of the beast that took their lives sends frost into my veins that not even another drop from the fount could fix.

Blurred voices into nothing I can hear our names in their voices as the seal fades to the night sky, the empty bottle still hollow against my hand as I press it to my palm— I am no longer comfortable in my own skin, scratching for ninety with jagged nails that leave physical indication of pain in its place, but blurred nerves into nothing I cannot feel.

I fall asleep clutching the bottle to my chest and praying that when we wake it will lay heavy against my skin.

Instead, I wake up to the light touch of cool glass against sweating skin, a disappointment to crown them all yet still I hold to the empty bottle with casual dependency as we set off, the piercing headache of last night’s ability to forget still reminding me that this did not end with hour seventy-two. Fairing no better Sue Tate stayed six paces ahead of me with the trust to only look back every five.

Pace number four on cycle seven and the thought crosses my mind to ask him what he remembered last night or why it felt so right to forget or if my dad drank to forget me, but pace number five turns to his gaze locked with mine and I drop the notion entirely, content to stare at the sun through green glass and pretend it did not burn.

The first step to fixing you child’s depression is acknowledgement, but time turns pain into patience and eventually, you cannot see through the looking glass because the lens has been broken one time too many.

I see the cracks in my skin when I peer through, ninety scratches on the wall and counting behind the blare of the sun—I’d rather be blind than see the ground beneath my feet turn to ash in the time it takes to cry for mercy.

But mountaintops give way to low valleys and the stability beneath our sanity gives way to terror as we stand shoulder to shoulder with that which we cannot strike down with reasoning alone.

When my veins run cold, I clutch the empty bottle of alcohol to my chest before second nature lends my thought to an axe handle, for the sake of praying warmth back into my veins with the idea that the answer to every solution is simply to forget.

I simply wish to be comfortable in skin that bleeds only when fire consumes it.

[wyatt o'connor attacks Sue; throwing axes]
fqov5fLbthrowing axe
Miss

1-2
Doppleganger

[accuracy reroll]
throwing axe
Bruised Back -- 2.5 damage

throwing axe�1-2�throwing axe

[Deleted]

S U E T A T E

He remembers none of whatever happened after he touched glass bottle to lips.

Eyes that have seen too much and shoulders that have carried a burden that could snap his spine in two, his eyes flutter awake as the crack of dawn cracks reality back into a mind lost in the escape of glass and alcohol.

This sunlight hurts He thinks

Keel over, his stomach assaults itself, twisting and turning, rolling and tumbling up and over itself as he lays in the dust and grime. He rests one bloody knuckled hand on top of it, as if hands that had caused so much pain would end pain as well.

He discovers that they can't do both, and it comes in the form of the lies he tells leaving his mouth and staining the ground below with their acidity. One hand on the gun and two thoughts on the trigger, his foot stomps down into a spiderweb he hadn't seen below as he makes his way upright, climbing trees made of stomach pain and sore joints.

The bodies of Noah Bowers and Maya Xiaoqing are gone, carrying puzzle pieces with them.

He realizes, as his shadow dances with the rising sun, that they'd been stupid.

They'd shared a drink with Death in hopes that it'd bring their friends back. Death, apparently, doesn't work like that.

Because theres still one two three bony fingers on his shoulder, cracking spirits and snapping hopes as he takes one step two steps away from an empty wine bottle and towards a filled to the brim backpack.

He rummages through the items of a wealth left over, half thought wishes of Noah and Maya rising up with the waking sun fleeing across his mind. One hand on the bag, one thought on the trigger and two eyes on the revolver in front of him, bloody hands wrapping around the handle of the weapon, nodding once before sliding it into his belt, making sure its snug before grasping at an object that sends shining beams dancing across acid stained lips.

He's never held a sword before, because the axes were too abundant.

"Wish it were an axe."

He shouts it half-heartedly at his ally behind him, doing his best to swing with the weapon before letting it glide down into the dirt blow, steadying the blade with the tip of his finger.

It slips from beneath his grasp and falls, pummeling the ground below with metal weight.

One sigh, he grasps the weapon before taking the mask from out of his bag and putting it on his face.

"Ready?"

He sees them in the distance, sun baking his eyelids as the memories of the Cornucopia pound into his skull, banging on the drums of a lost sense of sanity. One hand on the gun and two eyes on his enemies, his breath reaches the trigger before he can even think to touch it.

He doesn't count the enemies in threes, but he counts them in ones.

One enemy

One gun

One breath

One bang

{Sue attacks Wyatt with sword}

BFE3E3Xxsword

1-2

sword�1-2

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

The mechanical copies move as a pair, looking just as weary as their living, breathing counterparts. Their eyes are downcast, almost nervous, looking just as real and battle-worn as the tributes themselves, marked with the same injuries, perfect down to the last detail. They carry the same weapons and items that mimic the real thing, and they stalk through the fog towards their targets with a gait that even looks tired.

But they are not. They are perfectly designed machines, flesh stretched atop their rough surfaces, looking for all-the-world like they could replace the tributes themselves.

The Capitolites wouldn’t even be able to tell the two apart, not without the added commentary playing through their houses.

As a heavy smoke descends upon the Arena and the doppelgangers press forward, discerning the pair in the distance, their pulses do not pound in their ears.

In truth, neither of them have a beating heart.

Programmed only to kill, the copies do not shy away from the tributes’ weapons – they take the wounds gracefully, expressing pain on their faces even though they lack the neural connections to experience the sensation. They grit their teeth, grimace, and move forward, but they don't cry out. Only barely injured, there is no reason to make a fuss over a bruise and a cut.

They did not speak. Verbal communication was a tool, not a weapon, and it was not yet time to utilize it.

When they attack, they feel no remorse.

[Wyatt’s Copy attacks Sue (throwing axe)]
Ut3nU_gethrowing axe
10014 -- Shallow Cut on Neck -- 4.5 damage
(Thrown Axe)

[Sue’s Copy attacks Wyatt (sword)]
sword
1085 -- Shallow Cut on Stomach -- 4.0 damage
(Sword)

throwing axe�sword

[Deleted]

W Y A T T  O ' C O N N O R

Only afraid of fear itself I suppress the scream that catches in my throat when I’m faced with the image of myself I never wished to see. The back of one hand attempting to rub the remaining slivers of last night’s drink from my eyes—true fear is only personified when one is least likely to believe it. But standing toe to toe with the trouble my parents drank to forget left me in a state of frantic fear, scrambling for the handle of an axe like any damage I do will fix what can only be broken— I only wanted to be comfortable in my own skin, regardless of how it bled.

I turn my eyes to Sue only to find him in the same predicament— twice the somber stare and facial hair. I strike out with only split-second timing as an ally, no thought of reason in a mind that knew none four days fighting. He had asked if I was ready, simple answer being that there was none to be found. Never ready for number ninety-one my axe skims across the skin of a tender back and I do not apologize.

Hand still on the hatchet I do not see him swing; do not see him tear lightly into the flesh of my stomach without drawing pain of my own accord, and though my hand instinctively reaches for the warmth of blood I am left with cold armor and a colder stare from the beingbeastmonster across from me.

On my seventeenth birthday, my father had asked me if I was afraid of dying, when the pocketknife was already beginning to show wear and my mother was too. On that evening we sat on the porch, bottle in his hand as he asked me what I was afraid of when I responded that dying was the least of my concerns.

I did not reply, only stretched my hand out towards the neck of the bottle in his own. A reflex faster than I could process he pulled it from my grasp, drops of alcohol littering the pavement like raindrops—we still couldn’t predict what was going to fall next.

When I stare down the same unfaltering eyes with my own in sight I cannot help but wonder what it’d be like to experience death without the consequences—page eleven never covered the desire of a gravestone, anyway.

Here lies Wyatt O’Connor—

Uselessworthlessidiot.

I do not see him strike.

Hatchet for heart I want to hide behind the smoke screen of the fallen if it means that I would not have to see their blades scratch against our flesh like the previous ninety-one scratches on the wall. To wonder where his heart stood now was a question that would remain best unanswered, if save only for the fact that there was an answer I did not wish to hear.

If it happened to cross my mind the smoke screen would crumble before I could put it back together.

The heart of stone across from my own strikes out and the axe falls from my hand, kicking up dirt that lodges in the crevices of my skin—there is no reason to believe one to be clean regardless.

I step—once, twice—before losing the sense of appeal that came with the blade in my hand, but the idea of pacing away from what was ahead was too great a negative to be denied the rights of.

Curled fist around a sweating palm I pause in my tracks as the voice of a father one year less wise whispered in the wind, (“Are you afraid of dying, Wyatt?”) My heart rate does not increase as I lunge in the direction of the one who could easily sink a hatchet through my heart, the answer remaining unspoken if only to be answered.

Pulse beneath a dying wrist I am not afraid of what I am.

(“So, Wyatt, what are you afraid of then—living?”

“I’m not afraid of that either.”

“There has to be something.”)

There are many ways to spell Wyatt O’Connor, and own worst nightmare just happens to be one of them.

[wyatt o'connor attacks sue tate; unarmed]
V2rrH_2hunarmed
[bruised left arm -- 2.0]

1-2
[doppleganger]

unarmed�1-2

[Deleted]

S U E  T A T E

In the moment that it takes for Sue Tate's heavy worded lies to flee the place they so heavily guarded with foggy armor, Sue Tate can only stretch his counting to one and a half. 

And then the fog breaks, it's soul snapping in two as Sue Tate's reality snaps with it, broken puzzle pieces littering a spider web filed ground. 

He stumbles backwards and, for a moment, forgets to count the one two three as his fingers curl into themselves, gloved up digits digging into the sin riddled flesh of his palms. He'd always had some sort of fucked up fear of mirrors, ever since he'd seen his lips bend twist snap within the confines of a glass realm. And so he'd done everything to avoid them, empty shoulder shrugs and head turns

Pace quickening as he passes by glass that threatens to rip the seasoned lies right off of his face, glass shards riddling his broken reflection as eyes glance one two three moments to the right, away from a reflection he's never wanted to see.

The fog clamors at his armor, dust fingers running across the contour of his face, clawing down his cheekbones before ripping the lies from the edge of his lips, one quickened breath escaping as he coughs on his own sins, stumbling backwards wildly in the middle of a foggy paradise hell.

A man and a mask and a gun and a sword stare back at him, harsh sunlight bouncing off the metal masks he wears and dancing across his eyes, blinding him with every slight movement. 

The webs he's spun between his fingers are the only things that keep the metal and all it's weight in place as he stares. 

Eyes widen, and his lips part like the sea in the stories his grandmother used to tell him, jaw dropping like the branches of District Seven as a Branchwrangler locks onto it's newest victim. Sue Tate stares, one man against the world of his lies, at the body in front of him, half believing its real half believing this is just some cruel trick.

He'd smashed a mirror on the left wall of his room in the training center, twelve paces of broken glass and thirteen breaths of a broken man and fourteen gashes on the outside of already broken knuckles being the only defining evidence to prove that he'd done it. 

"Oh, why on earth would you break that, Sue?!" 

Funny how he could remember the words that slipped from his escort's lips as she stared at the mess in front of her, but the name escapes him. And for the past three years he'd taken care of a grandmother who held in her head a mind so primitive that it was folding in on itself, discarding broken and pieced together memories into the dense fog of her surroundings, body collapsing into some fucked up state of being. 

Maybe he was more like her than he thought, beard and all. 

He grips a sword like an axe, burying the bile rising up in his throat like an axe into wood. Burying, burying, the only thing he was good for was burying things. 

Burying axe in wood

Burying truth in lies

He hadn't even been good enough at that to bury the bodies of his own allies and all their metal stroked limbs. Instead he'd licked Death's poison from the edge of a bottle, twisted his limbs in a dance of fake happiness and even faker sadness. 

This metal, it strikes at his neck, drawing him from a fake reality into an even faker one. Sue Tate had never been a fan of mirrors, doing a one two quick shuffle past them whenever he happened to be in the direct line of a distorted portrait, lips twisted and turned with the lies of his past and the mistruths of his future. 

And as the metal of a metal him lands on his neck, kissing it like the Virachne's claw, it takes all of his willpower and just an ounce of his sanity in order to stumble backwards, letting blood from a shallow cut sprint down the side of his neck. He presses fingertips to the warmth of his skin, raising his own blood to eyes that have already seen too much of the substance to be safe. 

Day four inside an arena built to kill marks the first time in Sue's life where a mirror had truly and utterly hurt him. 

His eye twitches, broken glass puzzle pieces collapsing into the abyss of insanity as he stares at the him directly in sight, mask and all. 

He feels the metal laying across his stomach, bloody fingertips tracing a line across the clothes they'd stuck him in as he stands ready to pounce on something that he could never hope of hitting. 

But it's a house of mirrors here, and he can't even tell which is the real fake tribute, and which is the fake real one. 

He wonders if his twin in metal and lies has ever felt the boot of a drunken man across his stomach, felt the fist of a fragmented hand on the bridge of his nose. 

"We drank like last night, my father and I, we drank-" 

He half mutters a lie just loud enough for whoever held the fake real ears to hear it. 

He lunges at the mirror in front of him, collapsed sanity and all.

{Sue attacks -- with sword}

eEjFBg4Hsword
GAMEMAKER EDIT: This roll was originally 1084 until I had to move/fix Sue's dice roll because it broke. Please record 1084 in the engine.

1-2

{}

2�sword

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

The allied doppelgängers are dramatic with skill beyond anything that Capitol actors can portray; they play their emotions across their faces with ease, each muscle twitching with the aid of a dozen or so mechanized pieces. They are programmed to kill, to be sure, but they are also programmed to mimic, and their eyes record the look on their opponents’ faces, copying the same look of recognition and maybe even a flicker of worry.

One of the copies takes note that the District Six male drops his weapon, and it immediately follows suit.

It watches, stumbling back in mock fear as the tributes strike forward, fake eyes gone wide in their sockets. It says the words with an eerie reality, face contorting in confusion. ”Stop. It’s not me. It’s him!”

It does not feel anger, only a stronger need to attack, a lack of inhibition in the face of danger. Wyatt’s copy does what it knows to do, throwing its body forward as its own weapon, mechanical bone holding the thing, the contraption together.

In eyeing the boy from Seven, Sue’s copy knows only to stay silent, feigning fear at the boy’s movements and his mumbled words. Rather than respond, it fights harder, giving all of its focus toward a plan of attack.

In the end, the programmed need to stay alive is no different from a tribute’s.

[Wyatt’s Copy attacks Sue (unarmed)]
T90LQ3W7unarmed
5034 -- Bruised Left Forearm -- 2 damage
(Unarmed)

[Sue’s Copy attacks Wyatt (sword)]
sword
1129 -- Shallow Cut on Chest -- 4.0 damage
(Sword)

unarmed�sword

[Deleted]

W Y A T T  O ' C O N N O R

Fear in my throat and second-hand reasoning in my mind my fist collides with the arm of one lie attached to the metaphor of four days spent in truth. Tall tales turned into nothing he could never tell me anything more than a name without feelings of doubt hidden behind us. No path to follow that would lead me down the same I opted for the opportunity to hide my thoughts behind gritted teeth and my opinions behind a furrowed brow because that was the only place where they were safe.

The drop of an axe brings me stumbling back to the ground on which I stand—never unchanged save a second axe to match that which I had dropped in prior moments when the idea of damage control was only a secondary thought. Staring down face to face with a copy of that which was bad enough to begin with I wonder if ninety-one marks were scratched upon his wall as well, the idea that someone could share the same burden never crossing my mind— I do not fall under the table of contents in five steps to fixing your child’s depression, if I had, I would not have spent so long trying to crawl through the first eleven pages.

Always bent; never broken—I could not be fixed or forgotten. My mother tried the former and my father tried the latter while I was left in the so-called neutrality zones of their battlegrounds. Calling for ceasefire I was never heard, silenced by the gunfire of “You need help, Wyatt,” and “Just get over it.”

I loaded the next bullet into the firing chamber myself.

Firing into blank space I never understood why the war had begun in the first place, never broken; always bent I promised them that I was okay, it was just one day too many spent in bed; one instance too many of pushing the plate away at dinner because I promised I just didn’t have the appetite. Sue Tate may have spun tall tales to tantalize the human desire for fantasy, but I was a liar of my own mind, set to tell the biggest one of them all— “I promise I’m okay.”

(“I don’t believe you, Wyatt.”) Soft voice into nothing the book turned to page one, five steps to fixing your child’s depression—but the first step was acceptance and half the problem was never able to come to terms with an unspoken diagnosis.

(“For god’s sake, if the boy says he’s fine, he is.”) Harsh voice into nothing the pocketknife pressed to my palm like the cutting edge of words he had no filter put upon. Never broken; always bent. His voice a loaded gun and my skin the scapegoat I learned how to fix the bullet holes before I learned to pull the trigger myself.

Practice making perfect for those ninety-one scratches upon the wall—I freeze in the presence of ninety-two. (“I promise I’m okay.”)

Never one for tall tales but always one for lies I do not flinch when the armor at my stomach is cut across one time more, slivers of metal hanging to skin that no longer screamed for protection I had half a mind to tear it away completely, but another strike from the side leaves me scrambling for thought.

Two apparitions of the same and both had turned their swords against my skin; it left nothing but to say that whichever of the two spun tall tales for a living had also felt the need to scratch blood from the surface. Left to ponder the consequences of actions untaken I pause before picking up the axe handle once again, muttering curses under my breath while pondering the thought of suing for better terms.

(“Are you sure you’re okay, Wyatt?”)

I promise.

[wyatt o'connor attacks sue tate; throwing axe]
UI6NZzOEthrowing axe
[axe in hand-- 8.0]

1-2
[doppleganger]

throwing axe�1-2

[Deleted]

S U E  T A T E

He is lost, and no amount of broken glass mirror maps can lead him back to the safety point of his mind.

A mechanical body and wire spirit or a brittle bone and broken spirit boy attacks his arm, kissing the skin of a boy who has only actually kissed one girl in his life. 

Nostrils flare as eyes dart between lost sanity and regained conscience, hands gripping the metal weapon laced between his fingertips like it's the only thing keeping him alive. One step back and he swears, he swears as a he kicks a pebble into the dust that some broken, nail barren, creaky floorboard sounds off in the distance, trumpeting his lies like the Capitol anthem. 

His copy stumbles backwards too, feigning pain as an axe makes home in his hand. 

Sue Tate raises his own hand to his eyes, drilling holes into it with a stare thats seen too many things. 

One jaw drop-

Two bodies-

Three slashes and too many gashes.

And he swears, he swears he can feel the pain of that mechanical gash, even though he can't see the skin pull itself apart hanging thread by hanging thread. 

This is a lie, this is one giant lie. 

A mirror he can't break feigns a fear that can only break him, and for the first time in the eighteen years that his lungs have pumped air in and out and his heart has pumped sin filled blood in and out and his shoulders have carried the weight of his own lies-

Sue Tate's lies backfire, and no amount of palms on one's back can change it.

His lips had become a machine, well oiled with the spit globs he let loose and the lies he shot out. And when the mechs came, wielding fog just as skilled as the weapons they carried, that machine had sputtered and broke, eighteen years of use and infinity years of memories taking their toll. 

He shudders, spine rocking back and forth like an earthquake was ripping him apart. Funny, how words and a body could do more damage than an earth splitting crack. 

Crack crack crack 

This mirror is broken, and he watches his reflection dim and blur as the pieces fall. 

He slams one metal tinted weapon down into the ground, broken cobwebs spewing dust clouds up into the air as he breathes heavy, lungs heaving for that poisonous air. One breath, two eyes shoot into the mech in front of him, eye twitch beard tingling as he bites his lip, hard until a blood droplet stains his teeth. 

One hand slams into his stomach, feeling the shock of it rattle down to his skin, stomach bulging as he breathes one last time. 

He readies a question for next time as he slashes at the Wyatt's in front of him.

{Sue attacks Wyatt with sword}

26vPKMUNsword

1-2

{Deep Gash on Cheek -- 8.5 damage on real wyatt}

sword�1-2

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

The doppelgängers echo back only silence, for that is what they are given. Truly, their programming is prepared for a situation in which they must fight loudly, hurried and worried with voices pressed to a dying yell, but they do not. Their fake intelligence registers only silence from the mouths of their opponents, and so they stick with what they’ve been assigned to do.

Attack, and be attacked.

One copy – the one that belongs to the boy named Sue – registers a harsh attack against its hand, and it gasps in pain with the boy’s voice so perfect, stumbling back to avoid further attack. It must take time to move past the imagined pain, must recover, but only until the time comes when it’s necessary to retaliate.

The other copy has done its job, fooling the boy into attacking his ally.

It does not smile, but it registers success in its system before it rushes forward for another round.

[Wyatt’s Copy attacks Sue (Throwing axe)]
HJ3NhCR_throwing axe
Miss (Axe lost)

[Sue’s Copy attacks Wyatt (sword)]
sword
1133 -- Deep Gash on Back -- 8.5 damage
(Sword)

throwing axe�sword

[Deleted]

W Y A T T  O ' C O N N O R

Two attacks to trembling skin and the silence becomes overwhelming.

The first stream of blood flows from my cheek and the same hand grasping the handle of an axe presses itself to the wound like pressure would fix the polarized— (“I promise I’m okay.”) The first tall tale is always believable, if for only the reason that the truth has not been set as a standard by which to go by. Painted in these shades of red I believe the ordeal to be a misconception of a story I have not heard, but the moments spent in silence lend way to the pressure that pounds upon my chest, grasping for air I have no voice to promise that I am okay.

Pathological liar he may be, but I have torn number ninety-four upon the dirt with the blood that drops from my skin like the world is bleeding red. Painted in these shades I wanted simply to hide from that which I could not see, filtered flee through the dirty glass—there was not safe haven in which to hide any longer.

I open my mouth to speak but all I find is the axe I have lodged in the back of one of the tall tale’s hands, open fingers to receive bloody bruises my lips poisoned by blood from my own—I do not speak.

In the time it takes to shut the thought out of my mind completely my back burns embers of color matched by the pain that erupts in the nerve endings severed. The second tall tale is always hard to believe because deception is best served with surprise at its side. When blood runs down my back and wraps my ankles in chains I cannot break with the blade of my axe, I stare not at myself, but the two stories twisted in front of me, neither beginning with once upon a time, and neither ending happily.

Hatchet for a heart I believed he would not strike me if only because the smoke screen had faded with Noah Bowers’s cannon, but with its resonation comes the sputtering of a heart that no longer can read past the dirty glass.

We drank together.

And when the bottle had run empty for the last time I had refused to let him break it against the cold corpse of the being we had faced the day before, instead holding it to my chest like it was the only lifeline I had—they do not last.

When I wrap a quivering hand around the slender neck of a green bottle, my veins turn to ice, and I smash it against the ground at my feet.

Tall tales are easier to believe the first time, because there is no standard behind which the truth can be hidden. Given as nourishment we are supposed to hold our stomachs on raw meat—this is only butchery.

Broken glass shattered around a paper heart I watch my lifeline crumbling in front of me shard by shard. If I try to put it back together I will only deepen the wound, drawing blood to paint the surface of my skin red—this is not a shade of anger.

I stare at two tall tales woven around a single strand of truth, blood on my lips and glass in my heart, “We drank together.”

Sue Tate had told me that his father let them spend their afternoons around the shared mouth of a bottle in order to forget what could not be remembered, yet tall tales are harder to believe the second time around because the truth begins to splinter through the crevices of deceit.

[wyatt o'connor attacks sue tate; throwing axe]
2HRFV6ZMthrowing axe
[split skull-- x]

1-2
[doppleganger]

throwing axe�1-2

[Deleted]

S U E  T A T E

Broken spiderwebs, these two spiders stand tangled in the webs they've spun through the years. One spun his in the forests of Seven, branchwranglers and tree leaves staring down as he worked tirelessly, thread after thread, knot after knot, spin after spin. The other spun in a lab, created from mechanical threads, twisted knotted tumbled over and over again until it formed a carcass. And then the wires came, stuffed inside the body with crinkly hands. And Death remained on the sidelines, bones glinting with the sunlight that bounces off the walls. 

It has guts made of wire beams and steel hearts, tracing parallels through it's body as it holds a weapon made to mock the true owner. And as Sue Tate cowers with fear and stands tall with his chest puffed out, as if he has any sense of manliness left within his own carcass, he wonders and wonders and wonders and pop, its a thought that bounces around in his head. 

He'd painted his skin with lies throughout his life, had the mech been painted with lies too?

He'd slashed at something, pulled apart the broken mirror puzzle pieces of one's cheek with his sword. He didn't know who from who, body from body, tribute from tribute. 

Lie from lie. It's breaking him. 

Ha! He laughs at himself. He was broken long before this. 

One hand clutches his metal stomach, chest plate rippling beneath his coat. 

Skin tingles beneath a chest plate that ripples beneath a coat that sways under the pressure of the cloaks of his lies. 

He breathes, heavy, one hand on his stomach while the other slams the sword down into the ground, dust kicking up beneath his feet and clinging to the beard hairs sprouted on his chin. Death spreads bony fingers across his face from behind and cocks his head straight forward, eyes staring down a mechanical mirror in front of him. 

One breath, two breath, a creaky floorboard parades his words. 

"Did you ever feel a boot in your stomach?" 

One second, two seconds of mechanical engineering. 

And then Wyatt splits it's skull. 

It's feet stumble forward, wire brain spewing out a skull that didn't even have to think of the lies and as it falls forward, helmet made of axe atop its robotic features, Sue Tate reaches out and catches it, shuffling backwards with the weight of mechanical lies pressing against his chest. He screams, unanswered question still tumbling from his lips and into his beard hairs, the latter of which had already been spattered with blood both fresh and dried. 

He throws mech to ground and breathes the toxic dust it throws up to face him. Screaming against its metal body, he bangs his fists down against the droid in an attempt to bring it back-if only to answer a question that could only be answered with a freshly cleaned glass mirror. 

Bang bang bang -- the metal echoes scream at him as he screams at the carcass of himself. 

Hand ripping clothing from clothing, thread from thread, lie from lie he tears into the robot, spewing spit bits and bloody crusts against its body. Dig and dig, he reaches the stomach and slams a palm down on metal ribs before standing and slamming his sword into and 

through 

It's eyes, one for Noah one for Maya. It'd never answered his question and as the sun glints off the metal of its body and the metal of the axe and the metal of his sword he raises one boot up into the air.

It crashes down into the stomach of a broken bed of a lie and bruises a metal ribcage over and over and 

The metal snaps and his boot goes deep inside the body, tangling wires around his ankles before he yanks it back out, returning the boot to the dust filled wasteland its experienced during the entirety of the hell he stepped into. 

He quivers as he turns back towards the dual pair of allies that stand gleaming in the sun, bit lip splitting open again as he chomps down on it, tasting the metal of the mech of blood. he sees his dad morph from one of the mechs and as it's lips part he nearly drops the sword he's been struggling to carry for so long. 

“We drank together.” 

Broken ribs and clenched fists he feels a pain unlike any metal dug into skin, his eyes waver, body shaking as eyes dart between the two of them. 

"We drank together" 
They never did. He loses reality like losing lies like losing the parents that half raised him with the slam of a door. 

He stumbles words, legs locked with the beating sunlight. "We- we never drank-" He stops halfway and kills the words mid flight, breathing back the poisons that he's released for eighteen years. 

"We never drank together...you beat- he beat me we never drank-" 

Sue Tate clutches his head as he speaks, eyes dropping to the ground before darting between the two. He watches one human mech human mech take 

one step forward

And he lunges with a sword t defend himself from an unbeatable opponent. 

"NO!" 

{Sue attacks Wyatt with sword}

witpME38sword

1-2

{}

sword�1-2

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

This is a filler because I need to sleep and this post needed to be put up ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Wyatt's doppel attacks Sue, throwing axe]
gIHa_ljRthrowing axe
10101 -- Shallow Cut on Hand -- 3.5 damage
(Thrown Axe)

throwing axe

[Deleted]

W Y A T T  O ' C O N N O R

Half a beating heart and a trembling hand do not prepare me for the moment when Sue Tate finally breaks. His tall tale fading into unsolvable mysteries and unforgivable lies I watch my axe split the skull of mechanical thoughts and framework until it sputters and sparks out of existence. A question never heard or processed falls through the air as I stand back in solemn shock, watching hands weaved around tainted words tear at flesh already ripped apart by the axe still lodged in its skull.

Half a beating heart and a trembling hand cause me to think about placing my own on his shoulder and bring an end to it all, but his own unsheathes a blade coated by my own blood and I step back, watching metal sink into the fallen’s stomach like a heart could be found just above it, and though I grit my teeth and wait for the horrors of metal on metal, my ear is met only with the sound of his scream.

A full on fall apart and there is no fixing what has been permanently broken, nothing to see behind sword sinking through eye sockets, and no hope in the blood that falls from lying lips as we hold solid eye contact for the simple moments that followed my statement. Seeing double in myself my attention falters to the being next to me, mechanical thoughts and filtered feelings seeping through the pores of untouched skin. Bleeding and breaking were different things, but with the pain that cracked through my veins with each labored breath I began to lose sight of the line that lay between them.

“We—we never drank—,” A step forward among the wreckage and I stay still in its wake—the best way to avoid the monster itself is to play dead until it loses interest in you altogether.

One more step forward and beads of sweat mix with blood, falling down my cheeks and dropping to quivering hands as every muscle tenses in the illusion of stillness, “We never drank together… you beat—he beat me we never drank—”

I do not move when he steps become a desperate detonation of the bomb that’s been lit four days and counting, for all that’s left to do is smother my face in the ashes and pray I do not suffocate—he lunges.

I do not move.

Half a beating heart and a trembling hand leave me fighting the urge to run my four fingers over the scratch he leaves in my calf like a brand of his own disapproval—we drank together, and still he turns his sword against my skin and does not believe me when the shards of a broken bottle flash across my mind like the nightmare I’ve wished to repeat.

He drank to forget, but I drank to remember the nights my father did the same, hoping to find pride in the eyes of a boy who only spoke of disappointment.

Moment of silence and muscles cry for movement, but one word presses the air like the answer to a question I had never managed to ask and the monster next to me lunges, mechanical muscles and twisted tendons hidden under synthetic skin realistic enough to fool even the pathological liar himself—a tall tale is always harder to believe the second time around because the basis of truth has been tainted in time’s passing.

Ashes painted on tainted skin, I stay still and silent until I feel the blood under my nails begin to dry in the passing seconds.

I do not watch for the detonation of sanity itself over my shoulder as I sprint.

[wyatt o'connor flees]
[actions will be in maint]

[Deleted]

S U E  T A T E

Sue Tate had told his fellow lumberjack workers that he was sturdy as the trees of Seven. 

One hand on metal the other on the shadowy remains of a breaking wine bottle. A desert dry tongue slathers the edges of his lips with whatever spit left in his mouth after constant spit globs and slobbering words. He tastes blood, he tastes iron, he tastes dirt.

For the first time in days weeks months years his lips are not coated with the deathly sour strike of his own lies. 

Sturdy as the trees in seven, his legs still stand no matter how many broken, cracking memories attempt to saw their way through them. Standing, standing, he knows his body is vertical but he can only help but feel like he's falling down faster than he can tell himself to stand up. 

Sturdy as the trees in Seven, but even trees sway with enough wind. And as he stands, in the middle of a war zone of mech and blood, he feels the legs beneath his bloody mind tingle and tingle and shake and

snap

These broken lies break the only thing that he can rely on to stand, and as he lowers his blade, watching the drops of blood he left as a kiss on Wyatt's calf splatter the ground with their stains, he drops to one knee, then two, then to his bottom all at once, eyes staring at the patterns left in the ground as his sword slides against it. 

There is silence that fills the space between them, in between the ghostly remnants of a broken mirror alliance and of sword and axe. Gears that grind and bodies that bleed, there's two different types of hearts stopping in this fight and neither of them are pleasant.

He sits as Wyatt O'Connor churns dust up into the air, metal axes gleaming in the sunlight as he takes off into the infinity. Mech or not, he doesn't know, but digits unfold from a handle thats been interlaced in between them for far too long. He lets sword meet ground as the shadow of a mech body beating heart Wyatt O'Connor moves, shadow cloaking the boy from Seven as if to signify the darkness of the times ahead. 

But shadow meets sun as the second Wyatt kicks up dust and Death, fleeing into the distance with the falling sun. 

Sue Tate sits in the middle of a broken glass, bloody war zone, listening to the sounds of his own muttered mistruths as they spew from memory into reality. The mechanical Sue twitches and moans, short circuits and breaking thoughts traveling up and down a body long gone. He hears gears grind together and as eyes drift over to the robotic body beside him he observes the way the sun glints off the body, highlighting the broken chest and the fake flesh lips. 

Even in robotic death, he can still feel the lies that spew from it. 

Sue Tate sits until the heat of the moment makes him a burn victim, standing up on broken branch legs and observing the death laying on the ground before him. 

They'd drank together. The taste of wine and sin on his lips tell that story. The long gone bruises on stomach tell another. 

He hacks through fake flesh and metal wiring, dragging the head of a robotic Sue Tate along behind him as he flees the broken mirrors. 

{Sue Tate flees}
{Actions in trib maint.}